Scandinavia 2008 - Day 19
Tuesday morning I took the early bus to Solvorn, where I would catch my ferry to the “town” of Luster. Like the day before, the bus to Solvorn followed the fjord & river road up to the town on the lake, Hafslo (on lake Hafslovatn). Across from Hafslo is a steep road that disappears down into a deep shadow of trees, this is the road to a narrow bit of semi-level land where the town of Solvorn rests. Solvorn has maybe 100 homes, half are small, maybe 15'x20', and the others are about twice that size and 2-3 levels. All are lovingly tended and well-cared for. Every window had a small box of flowers (probably one of the greatest architectural inventions of all time), and every home and building had some sort of ornate bit of woodwork. Most were small little decorative spindles in the underside of the gabled roofs, others were on balconies, window ledges, or supported flower boxes. The houses not painted pure white were either bing-cherry reds, daffodil yellows, or summer flower oranges. The town had only one road more than 40 feet long, and in reality, really only had one road at all because all the others were basically drives to brightly colored homes, barns, cottages, or sheds. The center of town is a small square that serves as a patio for a restaurant that looked to only be open for lunch and dinner on weekends. Just two stones throw from the patio & plaza is a black top car park that has spaces for 15 cars, a pier, and a guard shack for the ferry.
I sat beside the fjord on a bench. The tide was out. The shore was lined with red huts, all built of the same dimensions and materials, all in a perfect row, and all red with white trim. Jutting out from the huts were small narrow docks, each about 40 feet long and 4 feet wide. The boats themselves were anchored 50'-100' of shore. With the tide out no water touched the piers of any of the docks. The piers and exposed rock were barnacled and green with algae. The boats, huts, and docks reflected perfect mirror images of themselves in the flat blue water. The ferry chugged across the fjord from the far shore, sending out ripples that disturbed the mirror images of the little red barns. I bought my ticket and walked aboard.
Solvorn is a small town, but across the fjord, Luster, merely a settlement of two or three families, might as well have been cut off from all civilization. I had a steep walk up hill (about a 600' vertical climb) to reach the church. But there was a breeze and the sun shined happily between overhanging trees. At the top of the road (again, the only road) was a small set of buildings, one a family run cafe, the other a small museum, and the third the destination itself, the Urnes Stavkirke (on the Ornes farm). The cafe was shuttered, so I bought a ticket and walked up the the church.
Urnes Kirke is a beautiful thing; dark black wood, yet shiny in the sun. Built by the vikings around 1130 it is rugged and weather beaten, yet delicate with crisp lines. It has seen hundreds of years of time, and leans heavily to one side like an old man with a short leg and a borrowed cane. It is surrounded on three sides by graves in neat rows. The graves are like a manifestation of the church itself; likened to blackened rough-edged wood shingles that seem as if they fell from the roof and stuck deep in the green ground. Each grave was carved with hands that were used to working in soft wood not hard stone. Each grave was titled with one of the same five or six names. The only one I recall being the surname Ornes.
On the north side of the church, is a famous carved portal (doorway), the original entry of an earlier church from the same site, that at some date and for some reason was rebuilt into the church it is today. The carvings on the portal are cut deep into the black wood. The wood itself is of deep and wide grain. The portal opening is only about 2 feet wide by 6 feet tall. Around the sides of the opening swirls a continuous long form that is entangled in the legs, around the body and snout of, and in the teeth of a big eyed beast. There are many interpretations of the portal, which is an important link between modern Christianity and ancient pagans like the vikings. One interpretation is that the devil, a snake, is being attacked by a lion, or Christ. Another is that because the portal is from an older viking church, the beast may be interpreted as Niohaggr eating the roots of Yggdrasil. The intertwined snakes and dragon represent the end of the world in the Norse legend of Ragnarok. The truth doesn't really matter much, the real fun is imagining a thousand years ago when big blood-thirsty vikings crossed through that doorway to get a blessing before going out to pillage and plunder far off lands. What thoughts were they thinking when they were preparing their ship for war? When they saw the carved beasts, what horrible creatures did they themselves think they would encounter from the depths of the sea? Today when I take a trip, I try to imagine the streets, the buildings, the people, the path from the train station to transportation to my hostel. The worst I dream of are thieving gypsies and local cons, I don't give a thought to sinking boats, raging storms, falling off the edge of the world, never finding my way home again, lost at sea under an ocean of stars, dying in battle, spending months from loved ones, beasts of the air, beasts of the sea, beasts of lands not easily tread, or of gods and demons unhappy with my trespasses. My god what a horrible, terrible, and brave place the old world must have been. A time only most recently witnessed in tiny glimpses by the settlers of the old west (whose beasts were grizzlies, whose angry gods were famine, blizzards, tornadoes, and prairie fire, whose enemies were silently stalking Indians, and deserts green or sandy with no water, whose great feats were crossing lands unknown across the great plains, through thunderous herds of buffalo, around canyons deep and long, and through towering forests without path or trail.). I imagine that the night sounds of new lands are the most terrifying thing to behold.
Shaking beasts and terrible dreams from my brain, I circled the church, moving from the dark north side into the light. The wood sparkled with gold and deep ambers. I took more photos. The tour guide arrived and we queued to follow him into the small nave space. Under renovation to shore up the foundations and ground timbers (or grunnstokker in Norwegian) there was a small platform in the middle of the church in which we could stand. At first I was upset that I had made my journey to the church during a period when many of its ornamentations were in storage, but now I am glad, because I got to see in under the removed floorboards, I got to see the bones and stones of the church. Every piece of wood, wither it be ground timbers or corner posts, were from trees the sizes no longer existing today. The church visibly leaned from inside as well. The tour guide began explaining about the foundation problems that was causing the church to lean more than normal. He explained that the church has a normal and natural lean to it, that actually depends on the the prevailing wind.
The genius of the vikings is that they did not build static and rigid. They built things to move and flex, like a strong tree bending to the winds, it is the give and go that makes something stand up to time. The vikings ships bent and flexed when smashed with a wave, and therefore didn't not buckle and crush. And like their small ships that sailed the wildest oceans, their church, though tall and proud, moved with the wind. The tour guide explained that when a wind arouse, blasting the side of the building, that one could hear nearly nothing inside the church for about five minutes while the building creaked and cracked as its wooden joints shifted. After about five minutes the church would come to a sudden and quiet stop after finding its new position. Hearing this I prayed for a wind. But it was another perfect day in the land of the north, and only the sun beat down outside.
Outs of doors I circled the church several more times, then turned and followed a stone fence north then east up along a small path to several squat, gnarled, old trees atop a knob of stone and weeds overlooking the church. From here it seemed small and fragile like the old man with a cane. I prayed for its perseverance, taking some photos in case it didn't make it.
It would soon be time to meet the departing ferry, so I stopped briefly for some wax cheese in the shade of a tree amongst the gravestones of the churchyard. I stopped again at the small cafe that was now open, I had some delicious pie and a homemade cherry juice drink (I was surrounded by the rich orchards of Luster of Sogn og Fjordane). At the pier I met the ferry as it came bumping up against the old tires that hung from the pier, a ferryman came out and tossed two thick braided ropes to a slow moving old woman, who wrapped them around tie-downs. As the ferry departed back toward Solvorn, I leaned against the back rail, watching the pointy black church on the hill shrink smaller and smaller.
Before long I was back in Sogndal via bus, where I removed my gear from the station locker and took another bus back to my port of call town. I nearly missed my stop in Leikanger (yet another beautiful town on the edge of the sea) being too busy sight seeing and not paying attention to where I was. Thankfully I awoke from my daze and stopped the driver before he pulled out of town. It was a short walk back to the port (a single dock adjacent to the bus station really) where I met my ship, arriving shortly after I did, with barely enough time for me to stretch my toes out in the sun. When the ship pulled up I was immediately greeted by the lovely crew member from a few days before, the voluptuous curvy amazonian blond in the black slacks and tight white button down shirt. “welcome aboard” she said, welcome indeed. I quickly through my gear up onto the top rack and went up to the top deck, where I found most of the other passengers had gotten too cold and had abandoned it for the warmer comfort of the interior cabin. I claimed a prime seat on the back middle atop a storage locker, propped my feet up on the railing, and watched the Norwegian Royal Post flag (tattered and ripped from many voyages) flap in the wind as the catamaran cruised on.
The cruise from Leikanger to Bergen is probably more beautiful than Flam to Leikanger. We stopped in several picturesque towns, including one that had the most beautiful white hotel atop a luscious green lawn with snow capped mountains beyond. I shall stay there some day, my guide book has many good things to say about it. Before long the land changed, we were closer to the open ocean and the mountains began to dwindle down into the sea, there were many cliffs, and now there were low boulder strewn islands with wild tall grasses and mosses. When we came to the end of the long fjord the boat turned south and navigated the narrow waterways amongst hundreds of islands, mostly empty, some with sheep, and the occasional few with cottages. The boat moved at a fast rate, but taking a trip up to the helm I saw they had detailed GPS computer mapping that guided them around every little rock. Satisfied with my safety, I bought a coffee from the amazonian blond and returned to my perch, where the sun was now starting its long process of setting. The sky turned gold, the air cooled further, and I pulled my woolen cap down tight around my ears. I knew we were nearing Bergen when we passed under two bridges, the latter a graceful thing that sat precariously across two high cliffs. I made small chat with a German farmer and his wife, promising to visit them someday, and they me. The boat slowed as we neared Bergen, entering a large wide harbor, we pulled up the dock right at sunset. The lights of town were already on, stretching far up the valley and around the surrounding mountains. Across from us on the other side of the harbor I recognized the original dock warehouse district, now UNESCO site, the Bryggen.
Wanting to take advantage of the fine evening I quickly set up my camera and took some pictures before walking into the old city to check into my hostel. I found my place of residence easy enough. The girl at the front desk had bleached white hair, and some tattoos on her pale white skin, but she was cute and frisky. I was feeling frisky myself and we flirted for 20 minutes, I even picked up some tips on what to do and see while in town. I showered and went to bed. It was quite the day, and I was ready for a good sleep in a decent bed.
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